


Swim

by thelogicoftaste



Series: In the Eyes of the Ocean [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Awesome Fathers, Lonesome Blues, M/M, Swimming, The Nemeton - Freeform, and Getting Better, character introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:22:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelogicoftaste/pseuds/thelogicoftaste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles knows Derek’s gone of course. </p><p>But it’s not until he storms into the deserted loft months and months later, conversation already flowing, gaze trained on his phone and theories about the dead-undead tree stump flying rife that he finally, <em>finally</em>, understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swim

**Author's Note:**

> This was primarily based on [ this post](http://cousinstiles.tumblr.com/post/71471303040/1-do-you-still-love-me-please-call-me-back-2) and the fact that I'm almost too emotional to even function anymore. 
> 
> It's two o'clock in the morning, I feel like it's important that I mention that, because _dude_. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Of course, Teen Wolf does not belong to me (sad as it may be) it belongs to the original creator Jeff Davis, and all the affiliates of MTV, all of whom created this wonderful series - thanks be to you, Ladies and Gents :)

-

The funny thing is, it doesn’t even start until months after Derek is gone.

Stiles knows Derek’s gone of course.

But he knows it with that absent sort of awareness, with the shallow imitation of understanding. He knows, but there are monsters, assorted vitriol and the business of keeping fathers alive that keeps him busy.

It’s not until he storms into the deserted loft months and months later, conversation already flowing, gaze trained on his phone and theories about the dead-undead tree stump flying rife that he finally, _finally,_ understands.

He understands with the crippling emptiness of the loft; with the dust mongrels over the surfaces, the water stains on the floor and the dense, suffocating silence that has him running straight back out.

The panic is not the same as the one he had because of his mom, because nothing, _nothing_ , could ever compare to that. But it reminds him of it all the same.

It sits quietly over his bones, simmering and settling like an unwanted guest and so, the phone calls begin on a Tuesday.

_Your call cannot be completed at this time._

He sits at his desk and he stares in stasis at Derek’s number.

He tries, though he knows it won’t go through. He knows it with the same innate knowledge that tells him that he’ll never get better from the darkness. 

But nevertheless he tries, and he listens to the dial tone with a steady heart and a heavy sigh.

 _Please try again,_ it says.

_Please try again._

_Please try again._

_Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice mail service._

And of course, Stiles leaves a message. He leaves many messages - long and rambling, even though he knows that Derek will most likely have abandoned this phone. A clean break from Beacon Hills, Scott had said, so Stiles feels only a little trepidation when he asks, quiet and hesitant into silence on the other end of the line, “Do you still care about me?”

He pauses, and then he says, “Please call me back.”

He gives himself an hour, an hour a week on Wednesday afternoon between five and six, an hour of multiple and unnecessary voicemails to an answer machine that will never be heard.

It’s cathartic though, and the most honest thing he’s ever done; filled with his sighs and his sobs and his fears.

The voice mails are limiting, so he ends up with choppy conversations that are broken off with stern beeps and too many messages that begin with, “Where was I? What was I saying? Oh! Yeah...” 

The calls are also finite, Stiles knows, but he keeps doing it anyway; uses them to remember the way some of his shirts used to smell like Derek, how his bed sheets did too.

He misses that, he says to him.

Stiles knows it meant something, that _they,_ whatever they were, meant something.

He remembers the way that he used to cradle Derek’s face between his fingertips, tip his jaw to kiss him and he _knows_ they meant something.

The messages pile up there, in an indistinct automated service, like unopened love-letters.

-

Two months after the calls begin, Stiles’ dad hands him a notebook.

It’s beautiful, a brown leather cover with a sewn spine and rounded corners.

It’s beautiful but Stiles doesn’t know what to write in it. He’s always been more of a talker in any case, his mind and his mouth working too fast for his key-clacking fingers to keep up with.

He considers writing down his thoughts to Derek in it, to jot down his phone calls rather than talk to empty air. But he doesn’t want to do that really, because his traitorous heart still holds hope that Derek will listen to these messages, someday, and he wants Derek to remember his voice.

In the end, when it’s past five in the morning and the sun is reaching towards the sky again, Stiles writes only three things:

  * My dad is still alive.
  * Scott is still alive.
  * But we're not safe; and I don't think we ever were. 



The darkness comes and goes. Oh, it’s always there, always, but sometimes it feels a little denser.

Deaton told them it would manifest around their hearts, and Stiles wants to yell at him.

Yell and scream that he knows nothing, _nothing_. Because this thing doesn’t surround itself around their hearts like some clichéd fairytale, it seeps into their brains; it alters and it changes and it cripples them, like a _disease_.

And when it gets bad, when it gets really bad, Stiles stands in the shower, scrubs and scrubs until his skin turns pink and the water burns.

Stiles looks in the mirror and he loses more and more of himself with each glance. He finds it almost funny that all he ever sees around him in the mirror is white.

White, white and white nothingness surrounding him when there’s supposed to be darkness.

He finds it funny, finds it _wildly ironic_ , but only until he realises that in his reflection,  _he’s_ the darkness.

Scott doesn’t say anything when he comes out, he waits patiently until Stiles eases himself into his pyjamas and they both climb into Stiles bed, duck close together under the covers like when they were little, brothers in arms even after all these years.

And Stiles has tried a lot of things to forget. It worked, for a little while.

But whenever he stopped, the drinking, the herbs, the drugs, the darkness came back anyway.

The dreams became more intense, not quite nightmares but paralysing nevertheless, interspersed with phantom memories of Derek’s lips over his skin, his fingers burying bruises on the underside of Stiles’ thighs, the way that they fit together.

The dreams, the _memories_ , they tormented him relentlessly; reminding him of what he’d lost. So the things that Stiles’ tried, the medicines and the potions – they weren’t worth it.

There is, however, a box stuffed in the bottom of Stiles’ wardrobe. Everything in the box belongs to Derek, trinkets that Stiles holds on to with fervour, despite the fact that he doesn’t need any of it anymore.

His and Derek’s relationship was a simple one: give and take, fuck and be fucked. It was nothing more than that; so Stiles has no reason to cherish Derek’s things like he was anything more than the occasional partner.

But they could have been more and they were well on their way to _being_ something more, but then there were alphas and dead-undead tree stumps and the business of saving fathers.

-

It’s only after four months and three weeks of voice calls that Stiles finally stops.

He’d calculate how many hours it’s accumulated to but he’s already much too tired.

Stopping the calls doesn’t hurt him so much as make him feel numb, make him feel helpless and adrift.

It’s over dinner with his father, and the quiet clang of silver against porcelain that Stiles tells him.

He’s shy and boyish when his father says that he’s proud of him. With the Sheriff's chest puffed out and a smile on his face, it’s a _quiet_ pride.

It’s a relief, after the months and months of pretending that his father doesn’t hover worriedly in the hall, listening to the quiet, indistinct murmur of Stiles’ voice for the duration of each call.

Stiles went to the store too, he tells his dad, braved the weekday crowds instead of ordering online as he’d taken to doing in the past year.

Stiles hasn’t been out much apart from school, and the panic of going outside of his comfort zone is worth the sense of accomplishment he feels.

There’s a wet sheen in his father’s eyes as the Sheriff ruffles a hand through Stiles’ hair, kisses his temple.

Stiles wishes that Derek was here, if only to see him get a little bit better; to show him that he _can_ , and that he’s moving on.

Stiles begins to go out more, but he gets out to _run_ ; run far away from the crowds and the civility, parking the jeep right on the border of the preserve.

The clearing he finds three months later, is ten miles out from Beacon Hills, ten miles into the preserve and ten lonely miles from home.

Stiles runs and runs and runs and now he stands at the edge of a precipice.

The air is brisk where it cools against the sweat misting over his skin but the day is bright, with blues and greens reaching crystal clear towards the horizon.

The breeze flowing through the woods creates a ripple of noise, supple drawn out sounds of the forest shivering in tandem.

The cliff Stiles is standing on is sharp, built up of solidified mud and rock, and interspersed with hopeful saplings bursting through the cracks in brilliant acidic green; the precipice hangs over the lake beneath it like a promise.

The lake is vast, almost never ending, deep and dark and unfathomable. The water doesn’t lap, it ripples continuously only once – as the breeze passes over it, but then it stills.

It stills and it solidifies, almost a mirror.

Stiles strips out of his clothes; takes off his damp shirt, and his running shorts, gets down to his boxers, carefully unplugs his iPod and takes off his blue socks and white sneakers.

He piles it all up, shoving it to the side with the side of his foot before he steps forward.

He lifts his arms, feels the wind wrap around his body, curling through the gaps of his fingers, the fabric of his boxers and the strands of his hair.

Stiles lifts his arms, he tilts forward and he falls and he falls and he falls.

The water is cold, a biting frost that tackles his lungs and steals his breath.

Stiles hangs in there, suspended.

He almost considers staying, if only for a little while, because here, _here_ the darkness won’t take him.

Here, Stiles will be taking the darkness for himself; inviting it in, consuming it, destroying it within himself.

But he doesn’t.

He swims. He swims until his eyes burn translucent blue and his lungs sear cold, limbs flowing through water like it’s the easiest thing.

He surfaces, but he keeps his eyes closed against the sun and his head tipped back, gulping his chest’s fill of air.

He breathes in deep, the sharpness of the air clanging against his teeth, arms and legs working in lazy circles to keep him afloat.

The sound of the gentle lapping fills his ears and Stiles smiles, humming idly in the back of his throat.

He floats and he drifts and he grins.

He opens his eyes, minutes and decades later and the sky stretches out above him: the bluest of blues and limitless.

And when he’s had his fill, Stiles starts to swim towards the shore, coming to a standstill when he feels the ground begin to slope beneath his feet.

He pauses, feeling the water, gentle and serene, laps around his waist. Then, he sloshes towards the pasture.

This _place_ , it makes him feel virtuous, a little less mangled.

It makes him want to call today, just to talk about this place and how it makes him feel invincible.

But he takes a deep breath, shakes himself of that idea and blinks the water from his lashes.

And then he blinks, blinks again.

Because standing over by the rock side is a person, an _impossible_ person.

She leans effortlessly against a gleaming Buick Riviera, hair falling in careless strands over her shoulders, a faded tee over black jean shorts and lace-up sneakers.

Cora.

Behind her is a driveway, a stack of disused tires to the right and a bundle of strawberry bushes opposite.

And there, right at the back, almost hidden amongst the trees is a house, a modest two-storey cottage with a red-bricked roof and green-green moss curling over the sides of the stonemasonry.

Cora stands straight with a kick against the back wheel and strolls towards him, sneakers crunching carefully against the sandy terrain. 

She comes to a stop two feet away and he realises how ridiculous he looks, dripping wet and ankle-deep in lake water, chest heaving more and more heavily with each subsequent second.

“You know, there’s a joke in here somewhere,” Cora says, head tipped and gaze soft in teasing. She takes a neat step forward, the tips of her shoes stopping just before the waterline, grin flickering over her mouth. “A werewolf and a human wade into a body of water…” 

Stiles breathes in response. He breathes and breathes, and breathes some more.

Until Cora’s smile falls slack and her eyes grow sad.

Stiles heart thunders in his chest; too fast, he knows, Cora’s gaze flickers down to his chest and up to his eyes with too much worry.

Stiles’ hands clench and unclench by his sides, because they left; they _left_ and they never did.

They’re here instead, ten miles from home. So damn close and weaving together a new life from the ruins of their old one.

Stiles licks his lips, preparing for words that never come.

Cora nods, encouragingly, like she understands the weight he carries around now. 

Stiles takes a deep breath, “Are you real?”

It’s a stupid question, he knows, but he can’t quite stop himself from asking.

She nods; though it’s propelled by an uneasy wince more than anything else.

“What are you doing here?”

Cora huffs softly, taking a step back when the water hurdles forward.

“We were here first,” she says, quirks an eyebrow in challenge, but then she smiles, saying his name delicately, like she doesn’t quite believe he’s real either.

But Stiles is much too stuck on the part of her speech, on the implied ' _we',_ to notice.

He makes a half-abandoned move forward, legs trundling through water, sloshing the liquid forward to flood Cora’s shoes, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“Is he-?” Stiles makes a futile, all-too-general quirk of a hand movement that encompasses the house; a flurry of quirked fingers and impatient heartbeats but Cora seems to understand.

She nods, slowly, gravelly, “He’s in there.”

“Yeah?” Stiles asks, and though his question is infused with hope, he doesn’t look.

He doesn’t dare to look, because there, to his left in the cottage house with the red-bricked roof and the green-green moss, the white front door groans loud and clear as it’s opened wide open, and a figure steps out.

-

**Author's Note:**

> Well this, this is certainly a departure from the way I usually write. It's a lot more abstract and experimental? Yeah, experimental would be a great word to describe this. 
> 
> I'm not too sure I like it, but then again it's like two in the morning, (have I mentioned that?) so I might feel differently tomorrow. 
> 
> Whatever, I'm going the fuck to sleep :)


End file.
